Marilyn--nice to meet you at West Chester, thanks for signing your Aralia book for me.
I've always thought that "Preludes" is a lovely, stunning poem with powerful images. I am intrigued by his shifting use of pronouns and the haunting picture of shabby London in the early part of the century. Then Eliot ends the poem with the lines
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
Now what the hell does that mean and how does it relate to the rest of the poem? It's almost like Eliot thought he was being too clear and had to throw some enigmatic lines in at the end. "Ancient women gathering fuel in vacant lots" is related to some of the subject matter dealt with earlier in the poem--the urban poor. But it seems like a silly ending that departs from the cumulative energy of the poem and ends it on a note of banality.
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